This invention relates to a container suitable for storing a liquid, powder or granular material. The container includes a cap which can be put on the mouth of the container to hermetically seal up the mouth and can be removed from the container, all in a single action with one hand. The container is also equipped with means which prevents the cap from being inadvertently removed when it is tampered with by e.g. infants.
Typical liquid containers such as bottles for nail varnish or enamel paint are required to be both watertight and airtight when capped since nail varnish is volatile. The cap usually carries a brush or other means for applying nail varnish to the nails.
A conventional nail varnish bottle comprises a bottle body having a neck and a cap detachably fitted on the tubular neck of the bottle body. The tubular neck has a vertical straight bore and is formed with male threads on its outer surface.
The cap has a female threaded inner surface adapted to engage the male threaded outer surface of the tubular neck of the bottle body, and carries a brush at the business bottom end of a shaft extending downwardly from the inner top or ceiling of the cap.
The cap is put on the neck of the bottle body with its brush inserted in the bottle through its straight bore of the neck by engaging its female threaded surface of the cap with the male threaded surface of the bottle neck until the opening of the bottle is hermetically sealed by the cap.
When using the nail varnish, the user loosens the cap, removes it to pull the brush together out of the bottle, and works the brush, which is now soaked with nail varnish, against the nails to apply varnish to them.
In order to loosen and remove the cap, the user has to hold the bottle with one hand and turn the cap with the other because it is a screw cap screwed on.
Since nail varnish is volatile, the nail varnish bottle should be hermetically closed by putting the cap back on quickly after use. On the other hand, as if on the horns of a dilemma, it usually takes a rather long time for the varnish applied to finger nails (usually applied to all the ten fingers of both hands at a time) to dry up.
In order to attach and detach the cap, it has to be turned several times or more with one hand while holding the bottle with the other hand. This is troublesome and time-consuming.
If trials are made to put the cap back on the bottle, which require the quickest possible screwing job by both hands as described above, with haste even before the varnish on the nails completely dries up, the still wet and soft varnish on one or some of the ten nails, which has been applied with elaborate efforts, may be all too often marred by inadvertently letting them touch something, no matter how much care the user exercises to put the cap back on. Thus practically, the user cannot put the cap back on until the varnish on the nails has completely dried up.
When the brush is pulled out of the bottle, excess varnish tends to be carried by the brush. It has to be removed by scraping the brush against the inside edge of the opening of the bottle neck to adjust the amount of varnish to be applied with so much time expended in doing so (delaying the time to put the cap back on). The edge of the opening is thus soiled with the scraped-off varnish. The varnish stuck along the edge of the opening will soon dry up, crust and become useless.
An object of the present invention is to provide a container such as a nail varnish container having means which permits the user to quickly remove the cap from or put the cap back on with a single hand without the need to turn the cap and without the fear of marring the elaborate finish of the varnish applied to the nails, and means for spontaneously removing excess varnish carried on the brush when the brush is pulled out of the bottle.